Crypto Academy Week 9 - Homework Post for Professor @imagen on ICO. (Initial Coin Offering) Homework by @kelechisamuel

it was a great lecture by @imagen and i glad that the crypto school has resumed without wasting much time I would go straight to the homework answers

what is an ICO

source

The term ICO could be seen as a system of financing using crypto coins , mostly a form of mass-financing .
Understandably , a company seeking finance or funds to develop a crypto coin , icon or service launches an ICO as a way to raise capital.

Interested capitalists , can then fund into the offering and get a crypto token issued by the establishment
The token could have utility of services rendered by the company or represent a stake /share in the establishment

The lesson gives us understanding of majority of ICOs being failures and basically has trust issues when issued.

From the little note above, the ICO concept could have been explained

Differences between ICO and IEO?

source

Initial Exchange Offerings (IEO) and Initial Coin Offerings are alike in the sense that they are both tokens issued by digital companies to raise capital but still have differences

1. We understand that in IEOs coins are issued to the token holders . Therefore in the IEO we see that the cryto coins act as intermediaries between between the token issuer and the investors in the establishment unlike the ICO where investors are given tokens from said project which aren't feasible

2. Lucidity still could be assumed as another difference between the IEO and ICO because in the former every details are disclosed about everything pertaining to the company but in the other token users are not entitled to all company information

3)Reputation and trust could seen as another difference between the both due to the fact that IEOs have feasible details unlike the ICOs who have majority of failing schemes which bring discouragement at times to consumers.

Advantages and disadvantages

The initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) have several benefits /advantages including:

1)Investing of crypto currency profits ;
The issuance of tokens in exchange for traditional money or other crypto makes it easier to store and invest the profits till they're real large usable since they can't just be withdrawn immediately
From the lesson we see an example of Ethereum that became prominent after a period of time of just being an ICO

1. The competition is lower :
   Most projects find it hard getting finance through local ways more especially if they lack approach for one reason or another sometimes due to location . It's simple funding nature gives it way for funding

Even as to the advantages gained from ICOs there are demerits /disadvantages

1. We understand ICOs to be simple in nature and so they no compliance with arrangement works or lawful protocols and so do not keep records mostly

2. Easiness to hack and Scam .. There are so many failures recorded in the ICO history since many investors hope to quickly get what they invested while they are largely unregulated and since they re sooo desperate to make huge money and in the process they can't distinguish between real business and scam.

Question 4

Initial Coin offerings have seemed futile and fruit bearing in different times but these are some of them who thrived and brought benefits to their supposed investors.

1. File coin

source

Filecoins used block chain technology to create a decentralized data network which users are provided access to their servers and share their rewards in exchange for Filecoins .
Here you see that tokens were given .. and later exchanged for actual liquidable coins

1. **Bancor **

source

A bit similar to the former is like a block chain guess market which served as a project for crypto holders to measure their own price and allow changing of other tokens to take place ie for example investors are allowed to buy a token that is 50% Bitcoin and 50%Ethereum

conclusion
There are still more to mention who thrived from being initial Coin offerings and more who failed but above we have a little list of those who thrived
in general, ICOs are worth the calculated risk but should be careful observed before investing.

CC
@steemblog
@steemcurator02
@steemcurator01
@imagen